


Eden Sank to Grief

by Dracoduceus



Series: Nothing Gold [5]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Dubious Science, Hanahaki AU, Idiots in Love, M/M, hinted young McHanzo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 04:37:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13967481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracoduceus/pseuds/Dracoduceus
Summary: It started, the way all large things started, by something very small.A tickle in his throat, a slight hitch in his breath; nothing a short cough couldn’t fix. But Hanzo didn’t think much of it – the fog off the sea had been particularly heavy lately and a cold was traveling like wildfire through the agents. He coughed once, accepted a mug of hot tea and a glass of orange juice from McCree with a nod of thanks, and thought – for the tiniest fraction of a second – about getting vitamin C supplements so he wouldn’t get sick.But he didn’t want to deal with Dr. Ziegler so he didn’t.





	1. Eden Sank to Grief

**Author's Note:**

> I felt like writing something somewhat bittersweet so I did. 
> 
> I apologize for any errors - I wrote and reviewed this quickly before posting but I'm sure there are a few typos I missed.

It started, the way all large things started, by something very small.

A tickle in his throat, a slight hitch in his breath; nothing a short cough couldn’t fix. But Hanzo didn’t think much of it – the fog off the sea had been particularly heavy lately and a cold was traveling like wildfire through the agents. He coughed once, accepted a mug of hot tea and a glass of orange juice from McCree with a nod of thanks, and thought – for the tiniest fraction of a second – about getting vitamin C supplements so he wouldn’t get sick.But he didn’t want to deal with Dr. Ziegler so he didn’t.

McCree smiled at him at breakfast and nudged him with an elbow during a particularly bad joke that Reinhardt told. Hanzo laughed because McCree was beaming at him with that grin of his that was as bright as the sun and something – a something that was becoming very familiar to Hanzo – fluttered like a living thing in his throat.

The next day he woke with a tickle in his throat and he drank twice as much water as he normally did though he couldn’t quite tell if it was because he didn’t want to get sick or because he imagined he saw McCree’s eyes fall and linger on the bob of his throat as he drank. He still coughed occasionally but they were mostly dry coughs and he teased the cowboy that it was because of the lingering smell of dust and smoke on him.

His dry cough lingered for a few days before turning wet. Genji joked that his brother had finally succumbed to the plague afflicting the rest of the agents that were able to get sick.

Genji, of course, was not on that list.

Dr. Ziegler ordered him into her office and with great reluctance, he went. She checked him over briskly and announced that he only seemed to have a minor cold – he should drink plenty of fluids  _ that weren’t alcohol – water, Agent Hanzo, I’m talking about water _ – and to get a lot of sleep.

When he confided this to McCree, he was offered one of those odd smiles of the gunslinger’s – alone with Hanzo he often smiled as if his face had been frozen into that odd half-frown he wore as he chewed on the end of his cigarillos. Hanzo turned his head away to cough and McCree offered one end of his stupid blanket and Hanzo wasn’t so proud – or such a fool – to turn away.

“It’s gettin’ cold out,” McCree said mildly as he kicked his legs into the open air beneath them. “Bein’ sick an’ all, maybe you should be goin’ inside? Getting’ some o’ that rest Ange prescribed?”

Hanzo felt another cough building in his throat and swallowed quickly to push it back down. “Just a little longer,” he said. He didn’t tell McCree that it wasn’t the cold or his illness that he was talking about; that he was really speaking of the warm weight of McCree’s arm around his shoulders, of the cedar scent that clung so close to McCree and the neutral smell of detergent still clinging to the gunslinger’s serape.

“Okay,” McCree said agreeably. “Fine by me.”

The cough didn’t get better; it seemed to get worse. Dr. Ziegler gave him a disgusting cough syrup that he had to drink twice a day.

He realized what was wrong late one night after spending the evening drinking with McCree. The cowboy was a melancholy drunk, but he always seemed rather melancholy around Hanzo. He smiled and talked less and his eyes seemed less vibrant. When Hanzo had asked about it between their usual teasing jabs, McCree had only offered him that odd smile he seemed to reserve for Hanzo and said, “Well that’s ‘cos I’m comfortable ‘round ya. Like I can just be, y’know?”

The something fluttered in his throat more insistently like a wild bird trying to escape its cage. The ever-present tickle in his throat rose but he only allowed himself to cough twice – no more, he didn’t want to interrupt the time he had with McCree by  _ coughing _ – and turned to look at McCree again.

McCree’s face seemed, as he had noticed before, halfway frozen into a scowl but his eyes seemed more relaxed and the corners of his mouth weren’t as pulled down or up as Hanzo had witnessed before. He seemed relaxed, Hanzo realized. Relaxed with  _ him _ , an ex- _ yakuza  _ princeling that had attempted to kill his own brother. With an alcoholic and a killer, a former assassin-for-hire with enough blood on his hands to drown a person.

The silver moonlight highlighted the bends in his twice-broken nose from a bad night and a bruiser in a bar brawl.  _ Say that ten times fast, Shimada-san _ , McCree had once told him as he fingered the bridge of his nose. He had offered a smile that looked like he had only been going through the motions: the corners of his lips pulled back and up, his teeth peeking out like a person reluctantly smiling for the camera.

“It’s gettin’ late,” McCree said, eyeing the bottle in front of him. “An’ I know y’ need your rest.” He nudged Hanzo gently. “This ain’t the  _ fluids _ Ange was talkin’ ‘bout ya drinkin’.”

Hanzo laughed, drunk no matter how much he wanted to deny it. Even McCree smiled that odd smile of his and the flutter rose in his throat. It hurt to close his throat against another cough and he nearly choked on it when it came up anyway. Two coughs – no more, even though he and McCree were getting ready to leave – and he groaned, washing down the phlegm and the bitter taste that had come up with another sip of  _ sake _ .

“Yeah,” McCree said as he heaved himself to his feet. “Time fer bed, Han.” He paused, cocking his head to the side not unlike the dog Hanzo sometimes called him. “Sorry…is that okay?”

Perhaps a little dumbly (okay,  _ a lot _ dumbly) Hanzo stared up at McCree. Backlit against the full moon behind him he looked like a cowboy out of a trashy romance novel, his face hidden by shadow with his gloved hand extended to help Hanzo up.

Hanzo accepted the help and released his hand before he could fall into McCree’s chest. “Perhaps for you,” Hanzo’s drunken lips said before he could stop them. “I could make an exception.”

“Mighty kind o’ you,” McCree said with all the solemnity it deserved. “An’ what about Hanners?”

Unable to help himself, Hanzo smiled and then laughed again. It was silly – absolutely  _ ridiculous _ – and yet it sounded right somehow in the gunslinger’s whiskey voice. “ _ Definitely _ only for you,” Hanzo said and bumped into McCree’s shoulders as they walked back to the living quarters of the base.

“I shall savor it, then,” McCree said as solemnly as he had earlier. His peculiar smile was back but Hanzo had long since gotten used to it and relished the thought that (at least according to McCree) he was the only one to see it.

But McCree didn’t lie if he could help it and he had said this to Hanzo sober, with all the seriousness of a lover’s secret confession.

Ever the gentleman, McCree walked Hanzo back to his room and waited for him to fumble with the keypad. When Hanzo turned back around, he found that McCree had taken off his thick glove. The gunslinger tapped his nose with a finger that smelled like leather. “Goodnight, Hanners.”

That peculiar smile was back and Hanzo basked in it for a moment. He could feel something clawing up his throat. “Goodnight, Jesse McCree,” he said.

McCree cocked his head to the side like a curious dog. “I could get used to hearin’ that.”

“Only for you,” Hanzo’s drunk lips said. He blushed but didn’t take it back.

Taking a step back, McCree nodded. “I look forward to it,” he said mildly. With a last lingering look, he walked down the hall to his room and Hanzo closed and locked the door.

When he was sure that McCree was no longer in earshot, Hanzo allowed himself to cough.

And cough.

And cough.

It was the most annoying kind of cough, Hanzo mused to himself as he groped for a paper towel, a tissue,  _ anything _ . He could  _ feel _ it, somewhere just above his collarbones, and the coughing was beginning to hurt –  _ had _ been hurting as he tore up his throat. For the love of him though, he couldn’t get the stubborn thing out.

His coughing upset his stomach and he ran to the attached bathroom and bracing his hands on the toilet seat, heaved up some of the alcohol he had just consumed. The bile burned his sore throat and he coughed even more when some of it managed to get caught in his nostrils.

For a long moment he lay there, leaning against the toilet while he caught his breath. The air burned his throat even more but until he could blow his nose, breathing through his nose was intolerable and would most likely throw him into another coughing fit.

It was as he was pushing himself to his feet and reaching to flush the toilet that he noticed the petal in the water. As if mocking him it bobbed and scoffing at his own folly, Hanzo watched it swirl down the drain. He blew his nose and washed his face and mouth.

He brushed his teeth and wondered and scoffed to himself again.

Hanahaki.

He knew the word, of course – everyone did. It was a popular trope in trashy romance novels and daylight soap operas. Coughing up flowers for unrequited love. There were three options, three possible ways to…stop it: cut it out, let it kill you, or confess.

Cutting it out was the easy thing. It wasn’t  _ common _ , but not as uncommon as one may think; truly about as common as voluntary sterilization surgery. In a way that’s exactly what it was but instead of preventing reproduction, it prevented  _ feeling _ . As if cutting out the roots and stem and flowers removed the portion of a person’s soul that allowed them to feel.

Hanzo had known an Empty One growing up in the Shimada Clan. She was his guard, one of if not the best fighters they had to offer until her untimely death. As a young child he hadn’t understood why they called her The Empty One (as if she were the only one the Shimada- _ gumi  _ had employed, voluntary or otherwise) so he called her Emmy, thinking that the loan word had somehow been her name. She was kind and polite enough but she didn’t smile or laugh and her voice was as hollow as an echo in an empty cave.

The second was self-explanatory, but Hanahaki deaths were still surprisingly rare. Most people chose the third option, chose to confess, rather than die. Few chose death because living, even in constant agony or without feeling, was preferable to the slow strangling death of the clenching roots of Hanahaki filling their lungs.

As for the last, in a way that was as debilitating as cutting out the Hanahaki. There was a _ reason _ that it had manifested after all. Many postulated that it was psychosomatic – that in a way the deadly roots and flowers formed out of a  _ perceived _ rejection – but most still believed, even in the depths of their animal hind-brains that it was some kind of divine punishment, a deadly manifestation of their destiny.

It was the most popular option: for those that needed to pay for it, the surgery was expensive and required high-tech equipment and specialists used to doing such delicate work and few truly wanted to die by Hanahaki.

On the other hand, Hanahaki-related suicides were rather high.

Still, even the mere act of confession brought about its own kind of consequence. Like cutting out the roots, there was something damaged about those who had Hanahaki wither in their lungs – and wither it did in all of the cases Hanzo had heard of. They wheezed, perpetually asthmatic in some form, and their interpersonal relationships suffered.

In many ways they were nearly as unfeeling as the Empty Ones.

Hanzo didn’t believe in happily-ever-afters, especially for men like him. He most certainly didn’t believe in love at first sight, either or the kind of love that would inspire Hanahaki.

He probably wouldn’t even believe in Hanahaki if it hadn’t been for Emmy and even then he could probably chalk that up to an overactive imagination as a child.

Except that he could, even after over a decade since her death, remember the blank look in her eyes and the neutral set in her face that had never changed. “ _ I do not feel, young master _ ,” she had reminded him more than once. “ _ No emotion, no pain; nothing. _ ”

But…Hanahaki. It was simply a far-fetched idea.

_ But where did that petal come from? _ The logical side of him asked.

Shaking his head to himself, he got ready for bed.

The next morning, the cough was worse. He had to turn away and cough into his napkin when Jesse leaned over to pour him a cup of orange juice as he always did. This time he could feel  _ something _ crawling up his throat as he coughed. It was sticky, clinging to the tissues and hiding among the mucous.

He worked his mouth and tongue and felt something resting there. McCree wordlessly handed him a glass of water and trying to ignore the tickle in his throat heralding more coughs, Hanzo swallowed half of it quickly, washing the…intrusion away. Rolling his tongue around his mouth, he made sure that there was nothing in his mouth before speaking. “Thank you,” he said to Jesse.

“Anytime,” McCree murmured back as he sat down to eat.

Hanzo choked on a cough and took another long sip of water. He caught sight of McCree looking at him, his bristly brows pinched with something like worry. Pushing himself to his feet, he somehow managed to excuse himself and ducked into the nearest communal bathroom.

Locked safely inside a stall, he shoved a wad of toilet paper beneath his lips and released the sticky wad that had been hacked up.

Petals.

It was an explosion of color – bright hues of yellow and bronze and orange – though all of the petals were folded over and clung to the paper with the mucous that brought it up. For a long moment he simply sat and stared.

Hanahaki.

A few still clung stubbornly to his palate and tongue and with shaking fingers he picked them off, wiping his fingers off on the napkin that was slowly deflating as it got wet.

He was scared, of course – who wouldn’t be, faced with a choice like this?

Confess and risk emotional maiming – and the ruin of a relationship; cut it out and be unable to feel – and ruin his new relationship with his brother; or let it kill him – and be a coward, and let down his team.

_ And let down McCree _ .

He sank to his knees and puked again in a way he hadn’t in a long time. More petals fell from his lips, drooped down to the water in the bowl on thick strings of saliva and bile. He puked until there was nothing else, not even bile, for him to bring up and pretended that the tears in his eyes were from something other than fear.

Shaking, he picked out the petals he could still feel clinging to the sides and top of his mouth and threw them into the bowl with the rest where they floated and spun as if mocking him. He wiped the dampness from his mouth with the back of his hand and watched as the petals swirled down the drain and disappeared.

When he opened the door to the stall, he found McCree standing by the sink, his hat held against his chest. His face was still pinched with worry and his whiskey-colored eyes, as sharp as a falcon’s, drifted over Hanzo as seriously as he would casing a room. Hanzo knew that he picked up on his damp, red eyes and the messy way his lashes clumped.

“Are…you okay?” he asked in a strangely halting way. His other hand came up and both toyed with the belt around his hat. Once upon a time it had been a simple sash: a faded ribbon that had once been blue, had once been one of the wrappings around the bow Hanzo used as an adolescent. He still had it, he had once told Hanzo, only it was too tattered now for everyday use; too precious to risk.

“No,” Hanzo decided. “I am not.”

McCree nodded a little robotically. He licked his lips and held his mouth halfway open as he decided what to say. In another life, Hanzo had teased him about it –  _ close your mouth cowboy, or do you want to be catching flies? _ – but now it was another twist of the knife in his chest.

The feeling in his throat – the Hanahaki, he knew now – rose like a wave, like a crescendo, and stopped his breathing for a terrifying moment.

“Should…mebbe…you should see Ange?” McCree asked haltingly. His eyes, cold as stone and burning as a mouthful of that swill the cowboy called alcohol, roved over his face as intently as he would when sniffing out lies on a foreign operative.

Hanzo swallowed another round of coughs, moving to the sink. He washed his shaking hands, then splashed water on his face, then rinsed out his mouth and prayed that no petals would escape his throat to bob in the water.

_ He didn’t want McCree to see it _ , he realized. It was a terrifying thought, a terrible thought but it was relieving all the same; it opened his path before him.  _ I don’t want him to see me suffer like this _ .

“Yeah,” he said to his reflection. At the edge of the mirror, he could see McCree watching him with that same hard stare he gave a particularly vexing enemy. He let his eyes roam McCree openly, uncaring that his friend saw. At this point this may be the last time he gets to see him like this, with...emotions, with... _ feeling  _ even if they were going to strangle him. “I will.”

* * *

Dr. Ziegler was displeased, having heard of that morning’s coughing fit. Hanzo made sure to make it up to her by bringing breakfast in. She ate while they talked and Hanzo couldn’t find it in him to be upset that she was so rude.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Ziegler said contritely more than once.

Hanzo couldn’t find anything to say so he said nothing.

“It must be important if you’re coming to me of your own free will,” she joked but maybe she saw something in Hanzo’s eyes because her tone fell flat.

Very carefully Hanzo placed the packet on her desk. McCree had walked him back to his room, unaware of the agony he was causing. “Be well,” McCree had said awkwardly as Hanzo moved to enter. “Please?”

Hanzo regretted not answering, of not saying anything back, but he had a mouthful of petals that would have given everything away and the worry on McCree’s face would have changed to pity. Instead he nodded and closed the door.

The mouthful of petals went to the sink and he coughed up even more until he puked – again, annoyingly, even though there was nothing else in his stomach to bring up. Just foamy bile and even more petals. He rinsed what was in the sink and dried them on a paper towel to take as evidence – not that Dr. Ziegler couldn’t run a scan, but there was something about seeing the colors that did something to him, wound him up and broke him down all at once.

Dr. Ziegler shoved the last few pieces of her meal in her mouth, ran to wash her hands and put her plate on the side, and returned with sterile gloves on her hands.

Suddenly scared, Hanzo stopped her before she could touch the packet. “How far does your confidentiality go?”

The look she gave him told him exactly what she thought about his question. Still she said with a little trace of bite, “As far as you would like me to go.”

“They can and will know that I visited you,” Hanzo said after a moment. “But nothing more.”

She nodded once and when he made no other move to stop her, opened the little packet. He watched her eyes widen and she sighed. “Oh, Hanzo.” Her eyes flashed up to him. “How long? Who is it?”

Hanzo thought of McCree’s warm smiles and how his arm felt around his shoulders. Of his whiskey eyes and the half hearted smile that only he got to see.

He opened his mouth to speak and stopped. 

He thought of late nights drinking, smoking, just  _ sitting _ with Jesse up somewhere high. He thought of movie nights where they hid together in a corner and how they always sat together at breakfast. He thought of McCree’s odd half-there smile and the tired creases of his eyes and the dusting of freckles across his dark skin. He thought of whiskey eyes and long lashes, of the smell of cedar and leather and the distant memory of two people in a past life sharing a secret kiss beneath the boughs of the  _ sakura _ trees in bloom. 

Dr. Ziegler leaped to her feet when he began coughing again. 

* * *

“Are you afraid?” Lúcio asked. 

Hanzo lolled his head to the side, careful of the mask on his face. 

“Yeah,” Lúcio said with a nervous laugh. “Maybe that’s the wrong question to ask at the wrong time.” 

“Maybe,” Hanzo said distantly, his voice rough from days of coughing. The Hanahaki got worse exponentially and Dr. Ziegler called in favors to do the surgery before it became inoperable. “I don’t feel much of anything anymore.”

Lúcio laughed a little hollowly. “That’s the drugs talking.” 

“I’m scared,” Hanzo found himself admitting to Lúcio. “And I’m angry that my last...my last emotion will be fear and anger.” 

He was surprised when Lúcio leaned forward suddenly and squeezed Hanzo’s wrist. “Hey,” he said. “No need for that. Let’s think of something nicer.”

“I’m afraid of thinking...of coughing again,” Hanzo admitted and it wasn’t a part of the drugs. He knew that Lúcio would keep this talk confidential, wouldn’t hold it against him. “I’m afraid to...I’m afraid to think of him and have my last thoughts and feelings of him be something I’m afraid of.” 

Lúcio scooted his rolling stool closer, boldly, and Hanzo flinched when he wiped away a tear he didn’t know he had shed. “Hey,” he said softly. “You know, you don’t have to tell me who it is - not now, not ever - but I’m all ears.” He laughed, a little hollowly. “You’re not alone, you know?”

For a long moment Hanzo stared. 

“You’re on a team,” Lúcio reminded him gently with a look that was far more serious than what Hanzo was used to seeing on his young face. “And teammates help each other -  _ friends _ help each other. We’ll be there for you through thick and thin. Sure we’ll all fight and butt heads, we’ll argue and make messes and some nights we’ll stay up late and wonder...we’ll think of the mistakes we made or the mistakes we  _ will _ make or the injuries and the deaths and the blood…” Lúcio swallowed hard and squeezed Hanzo’s wrist comfortingly. 

“I’m sad,” Hanzo croaked. “That I...I will be hollow. And I am just realizing...” 

Another tear cut a hot track down his face and Lúcio smiled sadly. “It’s a shame,” he agreed. “But it won’t make us love you any less.” He scooted closer and wiped the tear away. Looking over Hanzo’s chest where he couldn’t see and checked Hanzo’s vitals. He wasn’t an anesthetist by any stretch of the word, he had explained to Hanzo with a crooked smile during the briefing for his procedure, but he  _ could _ read a monitor, thank you very much. “Now,” he said. “You don’t want your last emotion to be sad, to be angry, and you are sedated just enough that we’ll put you under soon. What do you want to talk about?” 

Hanzo blinked dopily, hating how loose and weak he felt. Now that Lúcio mentioned it, he felt as if he was about to float away. His head lolled and the mask slipped a little; with gentle hands, Lúcio adjusted it and squeezed his limp fingers. 

“What if I cough?” he asked. 

Lúcio smiled sadly and squeezed his fingers again. “Your muscles are relaxed enough that the Hanahaki won’t be acting up and soon we’ll be putting in your IV. Don’t worry; we’ve got you.” 

The smile that Hanzo gave him was eerie, far too loose with the drugs in his system but Lúcio still savored it because it was probably the last one he would ever give. “I have a family,” he said, his voice lighter than it should have been as his eyes began to droop. Unnoticed by the former assassin, Angela had slipped in and was beginning to increase his dosage to put him under. “I have a brother and a team that cares about me. What do I have to repay them? I will just be empty.” Hanzo smiled again, this time wider. His eyes fluttered. “And I am...I am in love with Jesse McCree.”

 

* * *

When Hanzo woke up, his head spun. “Be still,” someone said next to him. A metallic hand gently pressed on his shoulder. “I will get you some water.” 

He opened his eyes as Zenyatta returned and with the monk’s help, managed to take a long drink. 

“How are you feeling?” Zenyatta asked. 

Hanzo paused to think and...there was nothing. There was no fear, no pain, anger, guilt, or...there was no love but there was also no guilt for its lack. Instead he said, “I am not, is that not the point?” 

He wondered if Zenyatta would smile if he could. Would it be sad? Was he happy? It was hard to tell. 

It was hard for Hanzo to grasp  _ why _ he should care. 

“Are you up for a few visitors?” Zenyatta asked and Hanzo couldn’t divine from his even tone his thoughts. 

Hanzo paused to consider. He felt no shame, no remorse; if he felt anything, it was a sensation like the first few seconds of freefall. Was that how the rest of his life would be? “That would be acceptable.” He looked around. “Where is Dr. Ziegler?” 

Halfway to the door, Zenyatta paused as if weighing his words. “She is working on a personal project.” When he received Hanzo’s nod, he opened the door and the team spilled in. 

Genji led the charge. Voices overlapped, there was yelling, crying, everyone talking at once. They asked a hundred questions and Genji tried to lecture him but Hanzo only felt…

Nothing. 

He watched his team and clung to those last few moments of grainy memory he had of speaking with Lúcio. Genji kept yelling - he’d never forgive Hanzo, he swore, how could he just go and cut out his heart like that?

In the very back of the pack, nearly hidden by everyone else stood a cowboy - the one that started it all and yet Hanzo knew that even if he could feel anything anymore,  _ annoyance _ would be the furthest thing from his mind with this man. The fluorescent lights of the medical room illuminated his face because his hat was pressed to his heart. In one hand was a dusty blue ribbon, tattered and worn and frayed at the edges. 

McCree stared back at him with a terrifyingly blank look on his face - a look like the one he wore during Deadeye. Seeing Hanzo looking at him, he offered that sort of half smile that Hanzo knew in the depths of the empty void that once held his heart was only for him. 

He waited to feel something - the hummingbird beat of his heart in his throat, the rush of warmth that washed over him like a wave, like a shot of whiskey. It was so ingrained now, to see McCree - to see  _ Jesse _ \- and feel that warmth. 

But he looked at Jesse, at the way the fluorescent lights turned his auburn hair into a hundred shades of gold and orange and bronze, at the odd shadows in his twice-broken nose, at a hundred things that had driven him to deadly love...and felt nothing. 


	2. Dawn Goes Down to Day

It was hard to get used to being around Hanzo again. Really it was ridiculous - it was as if in a single moment, in that singular decision to remove the plants that clung to his lungs and heart had turned him into an entirely different person.

And yet…

The old Hanzo would smile - it was rare, just a tiny quirk of the lips or a gentle glimmer in his eyes, but it had been there. Now the new Hanzo didn’t smile as if the mere concept of it was foreign to him. The new Hanzo didn’t laugh, either and McCree had never known how much he loved to hear it. 

What McCree wouldn’t give to hear it again - what he wouldn’t pay to watch the archer’s face light up again.

Because if anyone asked McCree (and no one would), he would say that Hanzo’s smile was as bright as the sun and his laughter more beautiful than...more beautiful than…

Well, he wasn’t much of a poet but he would kill a thousand men - a thousand, thousand men - just to hear him laugh, to see him smile again. 

But he...but Hanzo...Hanzo was his - would always be, in some way - in his fucked-up mind and he...and Hanzo was a treasure that McCree could, would, and  _ did _ hoard. 

He just hated that he didn’t see what ailed him until Hanzo had already gone under the knife. 

So he did what he could when he was allowed to. He distracted Genji to let Hanzo escape and brought food to his quarters the first few days while Hanzo got used to the new sensation. 

McCree was the first person that Hanzo really spoke to afterwards and he joined McCree in “their” spot the third night after his surgery. “I can’t really taste,” Hanzo said, his voice dead and robotic when McCree pointed out that Hanzo did not have his  _ sake _ gourd with him. “So I suppose your swill is sufficient.”

“I was...worried for you,” McCree said to Hanzo. 

Hanzo said nothing back but when he returned the bottle to McCree, he nudged his shoulder. 

Things didn’t get  _ better _ , but they learned to work around it. 

Hanzo didn’t laugh, didn’t smile, so McCree filled up the slack. His face hurt from contorting it so, but he would rather this pain than to suffer Hanzo’s unfeeling silence. 

It was difficult for the team to get used to as well. 

Hanzo was even more withdrawn but this time it was not quite of his own will. Where he was reluctant to interact, with no feelings of guilt or shyness or awkwardness, he participated more. He did not participate on Hana’s stream and she didn’t really ask him to because there was just something so heartbreaking about Hanzo’s...emptiness. 

But there were good things about having an Empty One on the team, they soon learned. Hanzo couldn’t feel - emotions, pain, fatigue - so he could go much longer than the rest of the team. The downside was that he had no concept of when he needed to stop and could - and  _ had _ , fortunately only in training simulations - go on until his body literally gave out on him. 

They couldn’t afford a spotter or a person on Hanzo-babysitting duty while in the field but they learned to look out for them and as an extension each other. 

It turned out that  _ hunger _ was an emotion removed from Hanzo so McCree made sure to stay on the lookout for Hanzo around mealtimes. McCree had long since fallen into the habit of rigid meals so that he himself would remember to eat and Hanzo admitted - without shame or guilt or surprise as he could no longer feel these things - that he now appreciated what he had once thought was a silly quirk of McCree’s. 

McCree smiled even though it hurt him to do so. “Anything to help, Han,” he said and Hanzo didn’t smile but it looked like he considered it. 

A week after Hanzo was released from Angela’s care (not completely, because none of them could ever truly escape her) he met with McCree in “their” spot to drink. “It feels like freefall,” Hanzo said though McCree had never asked. “Those first few seconds when you’re falling. I keep expecting to feel something but...nothing is there.” 

McCree nodded and took a swig of his whiskey before handing the bottle back to Hanzo. “I’m surprised you don’t bring out your good  _ sake _ ,” he said neutrally. 

“I cannot taste it,” Hanzo replied. “There is no point in wasting it on someone who cannot taste or properly appreciate it. Maybe I will give it to Genji.” 

They sat in silence. Cold was another thing that Hanzo didn’t feel but McCree still offered the edge of his serape.

“Does it bother you?” Hanzo asked. 

“No,” McCree said honestly. “Ain’t bothered by much. It’s yer choice and none ‘o my business, ‘sides.” 

Hanzo peered at him, his eyes lingering shamelessly. “Do you want to see it?”

Almost surprised, McCree turned to look at him. “What?”

“It” was the cursed growth that Angela had removed from Hanzo’s lungs and heart and throat, the affliction that had so nearly killed Hanzo and left behind a ropy scar in a cross over his chest. McCree was morbidly curious - as much as he could be - and followed Hanzo back inside to his room. 

Perhaps once upon a time, Hanzo had been self-conscious - McCree had so rarely been invited back - but now that was an emotion that Hanzo could no longer feel and McCree was allowed in without hesitation. Unsure of how he should be acting, McCree took his hat off and toyed with the brim. 

Hanzo walked to the corner and lifted a plain glass vase with a sad, wilted-looking thing slumped over the edge. 

“Ain’t that biohazard?” McCree wondered. 

Unconcerned -  _ concern _ being another feeling that Hanzo couldn’t quite feel - he shrugged and offered the whole thing to McCree. As he took it, McCree supposed that it didn’t matter anymore. 

“What’cha gonna do with it?” he asked. 

Hanzo shrugged again. “Let it die, perhaps,” he said. “I have no...desire to do anything with it.” 

Gently, almost fearing that even the lightest touch would kill it, McCree brushed a rough finger along its jagged leaves. “I have an idea,” McCree said before he could think better of it. “If...if yer willin’...”

The archer followed him out of his quarters, down the quiet halls, and out the door to the communal gardens. He watched with an empty expression as McCree found a small spade, cleared an area of garden, and planted the sad, dying thing. 

“Is...does that…?” McCree asked, peering up at Hanzo, half-expecting a rebuke or a reaction other than Hanzo’s indifferent shrug. 

“I...it does not hurt me,” Hanzo said, very carefully choosing his words. “I feel no physical pain and...I do not fear it. I simply do not care.”

McCree looked back down at the flower. It was missing its flowers and much of its stem and only a few sprigs of its spiky leaves were left to bob and droop in the cool night air. But the roots looked healthy -  _ almost _ \- and McCree...he didn’t quite hope but he resolved to care for it.

“Then _ I _ will,” McCree said, staring down at the thing for a moment before fetching a palmful of water from the spigot nearby. Hanzo looked at him strangely but nodded. 

Every morning before their scheduled breakfast, Hanzo followed McCree out to the garden and watched blankly as he doggedly watered and cared for the little thing. 

Late spring fed into summer and the team planned a beach trip. McCree begged out, claiming that he needed to watch for his little plant to bloom. It had grown with such tender care and was now putting out buds of flowers that McCree could tell would be in hues of gold and orange and bronze. He insisted that he needed to be there for the plant. 

No one let him and dragged him along to the beach anyway. He spent the entire time in the shade of one of the beach umbrellas, fully dressed in a shirt, shorts, and his serape while he watched the rest of the team frolick. 

Hanzo didn’t -  _ couldn’t _ \- and so sat next to him in the shade, if only because he would burn or dehydrate otherwise. “Why don’t you join them?” Hanzo asked and by now McCree was  _ almost _ used to hearing his voice so flat. 

“I ain’t self-conscious,” McCree told him. “But there’s things a man don’t wanna show off.” 

He watched the way the shade hollowed out Hanzo’s eyes, how the sunlight made the silver in his hair seem to shine like the metal. He watched Hanzo watch him for a moment. “I had always thought you attractive,” Hanzo said without shame in that inflection-less voice of his. “Even as a young man. What did they call you? A twink?”

McCree tried to laugh but it caught in his throat. “Shoot, yer gonna make me blush,” he said even though he was doing no such thing and knew he wouldn’t - probably only would when hell froze over. 

They watched the team for a while and Hanzo mechanically drank half a bottle of water. “Do you feel...that I should have done something else?”

“Ain’t no point in it,” McCree replied. “Ain’t for me to choose how ya live yer life.” 

Hanzo nodded and seemed thoughtful. “Why do you care so much about the…”

“Plant?” McCree asked and Hanzo nodded. “Ain’t got no shame darlin’,” he said, his eyes drifting over the beach scene. Snowball and Mei were making a sand castle while Lúcio, Hana, and Lena raced and frolicked in the waves. “But I don’t wanna be airin’ my dirty laundry out here.” 

The archer nodded and didn’t pry. 

“I had it once,” McCree told Hanzo later that night, safely hidden in “their” spot. “Hanahaki. Back in Blackwatch.”

Hanzo cocked his head to the side. “Did you tell them?”

“Every day I wished I did,” McCree told him, staring out over the waves. “I thought of a thousand-thousand ways to. Thing was, there’s something... _ a lot of things _ to be gained from an Empty One on the team.” 

“They cut it out,” Hanzo concluded, as accurate as his arrows in combat. 

McCree nodded. “They cut it out.” He unwound his serape, stripped himself of his shirt, and turned his body to face Hanzo. “I...ain’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish…”

He sucked in a breath - almost like surprise, almost like feeling  _ something _ \- when Hanzo lifted a hand to trace the old scar that followed his sternum, then the cross-cut that followed his collarbones. 

“Darlin’,” he breathed. “I-”

“You don’t _ act _ like an Empty One,” Hanzo cut in, brusque and McCree laughed mirthlessly. 

It still rang hollow, too hollow. “I got practice,” he said. “I...Empty Ones stand out an’ I got a bounty on my head.” 

Hanzo traced the scars with gentle fingers. “I wish that I could cry,” Hanzo murmured. “For you; for me. What broken, silly things we are.” 

“I take care of that...of...of the plant because I wish that it had been me,” McCree let himself say. “I wish that I had been able to love you; I wish that so many years ago in Hanamura I had...I wish I had the balls t’ tell you what you meant t’ me.” 

“This…” Hanzo swallowed hard and pulled his hand back. “I wish that I could cry,” he repeated. “What a pair of fools we are.” 

McCree shook his head. “I was the fool that let you go,” he said. 

“And I was the fool that cut you out,” Hanzo replied. He leaned forward and tucked his head into the crook of McCree’s neck. “What fools we are,” he breathed. 

Gathering him close, McCree buried his face in Hanzo’s hair - it smelled like strawberries, a habit Hanzo continued even though he could not quite bring himself to care about the scent of his shampoo and body wash - and wished. 

The next day, McCree woke up in Hanzo’s embrace and smiled. 

When they walked hand-in-hand to water the flower in the garden, they found it in full bloom. “Marigolds,” McCree breathed. 

Hanzo brushed his fingers along the crinkled flowers. He turned when McCree touched his shoulder and let the cowboy pull him into a loose embrace. 

When their lips brushed in a tender kiss, uncaring that half the team was staring at them out the various windows of the Watchpoint, they couldn’t stop the smiles that split their faces. 


End file.
